This hand is a case of making the right move at the wrong time, sod’s law and anything else that can go wrong.
I played this hand a few days ago and the situation was as follows: it was my regular game, a 6 player $33 double or nothing sit n go and everyone was still alive. The blinds were 50/100 and the chips counts were:
1 UTG – Me – 1505 chips – 88
2 (HJ) – 1380
3 (CO) -1650
4 (Button) – 2745
5 (SB) – 580
6 (BB) – 1140 – ????
I raised 3 BBs to 300 and everyone folded round to the big blind. He promptly re-raised me the minimum to 500.
The old “price-em-in-min-re-raise to 500” eh? Now I wonder what this could possibly mean?
Of course it’s supposed to mean AA or KK. I’m supposed to call because it’s only 200 more of course. I’ve seen it so many times before where it ends up with AA being shown down. It’s old hat.
I’d never seen this player before and I had no read no him, because a) I’d been multi tabling and b) I hadn’t been paying attention. And truth be told I was probably steaming a little bit because I’d been getting the worst of it that night.
Min raising with AA is so “obviously” AA it gives me a chance to get away from it. I find the better players just shove AA here to be less obvious and induce the call (a sort of “bluff”, without being a bluff at all, if that makes any sense). Did he think he could get me to lay it down? That I would so obviously suspect he had AA? Maybe he thought I’d notice he’d only left 640 back, that it just HAD to be AA and that I would fold. If so, this would make him a thinking player with balls – a player to respect.
But I figured – despite knowing nothing about him – that he was full of it. Well I did say I was probably steaming a bit! Besides I get a bit insulted when I’m given 4-1 on a call in position so I like to accept the offer and beat them. Plus there was also a chance he was doing it with AK because some players still treat AK like the immortal nuts.
I wasn’t sure what he had but “being full of it” was a pretty wide range of hands so I pushed all in. Of course I didn’t expect him to fold given he was down to his last 640 and had already invested 500 chips. So I was hopeful he had a nothing hand but still prepared to be shown AA or KK. It’s probably a bad push here by me. After all I’m only racing against two face cards and it’s not that late in the game that I can’t fold.
He duly called. Guess what he had?
83 offsuit!
Hurray – so he WAS full of it. Not only that I had him in the worst possible shape, my pocket 8s stealing most of his outs and making me a 91% fav with 4% odds to split.
The flop was Q33. Well that figures! The turn and river didn’t help me, no surprise.
The very next hand I was dealt 83o in the big blind. Well that figures as well!
The 530 stack pushed in his chips and our 83 off re-raising friend called in the small blind with 65 offsuit ! Of course he won again. You should have seen what the loony did after that! It gets even worse. Holding 33 and 2595 chips, with blinds at 75-150, he called an all in shove of 2520, against the one player who he should definitely not be butting heads with. It’s just such a bad call. Folding QQ would be correct here and he calls with 33. Poetically he ran into 88 and this time his luck ran out.
What I don’t get is how had he managed to still be alive when we bashed heads at the 50-100 level! And there was me thinking a bluff on our hand might make him “a thinking player with balls”? A complete nutcase more like (granted, with some balls).
